Film Studies

The Maltese Falcon is film noir written and directed by John Huston in 1941. This movie is based on the same name novel of Dashiell Hammett written in 1929. The message that this film brought to audience is crime will pay for its price, but sometimes it is just the matter of time. The theory found in this film is film noir. A brief description of film noir featured with a world of criminals, the central motives of character are usually greed, lust and ambition, drench in fear. The visual characteristics of film noir is dark with a lots of shadow, using high-contrast lighting with German Expressionism. The scenes are usually lit for night and always have location like alleyways and cramped corridors. The Maltese Falcon starts with a femme fatale, Ruth Wonderly pays a good amount of price to Sam Spade, the protagonist and his partner, Miles Archer to follow Floyd Thursby. After the night, Spade receive the news that  Miles is killed when following Thursby. Along the way to fin...

Dark City is an 1998 American-Australian neo-noir science-fiction film directed by Alex Proyas. This movie is influenced by German Expressionism as it have oblique camera angles, high contrast lighting that creates dramatic shadows and its content is about unnatural and gothic. The message in film is different people will have different ideas and perspective view to their own life. German Expressionism is a filmic style that emerged in Germany within year 1919 to1926. It is influenced by the Expressionist movement in modern art of early 1900s. Common themes of German Expressionism are revolt, self-analysis, madness, primitive and sexual savagery. Dark City begin with its protagonist, John Murdoch awake in a bloody bathtub. John couldn't remember any of his memory and is suspected to be a serial killer. He is later pursued by several stranger who own the power "tuning" and a strange doctor, Dr. Schreber, who helps him to recover his memory and escape from those weir...

In the Mood for Love is a Hong Kong romantic film directed by Wong Kar-Wai. The movie is presented a love story between two married couples happened in a slow pace. The message bring to audience is love can happen in any condition without matter the age of character, time or place, but not every love story will have a good end. French Impressionist Cinema is popular within year 1919 to 1928. The characteristics of French Impressionist Cinema is to explores psychological causes, audience can experienced the feeling of the characters with camera framing without have to give narration to audience, revealing play of the character's consciousness, and concerns mental states, dreams or fantasies. French Impressionist is now rarely to be seen in modern film due to less demand from audience and rising production cost. In the Mood for Love is about two married couples, Mr Chow and Mrs Chan who moved in a apartment and renting rooms with their spouses on same day. Similarities among ...

Paranorman is American 3D stop-motion animated film produces by Laika, directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler. The message in this movie is let audience to understand the importance of acceptance. Whether someone have different skin colour, religion, sexuality or special ability, they should be treated equally. The movie starts in a small town of Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts, a 11 years-old protagonist, Norman Babcock has the ability to see and talk to the dead person, but no one believes him and seek him as a freaks, even his family is ashamed of his ability and think he is just making nonsense story, only his best friend, an overweight boy, Neil Downe believes him. An old man, Mr Prenderghast asked Norman to inherit his regular ritual and died after this encounter. Norman is later instructed by Mr Prenderghast soul to find a book and read it to complete the ritual before sundown, but the ritual is ruined by Alvin, a school bully and both of them end up being chase by zombies. With t...

Train to Busan is a South Korea zombie apocalypse   movie directed by Sang-Ho Yeon. Starring Gong Yoo as Seok-Woo , Kim Soo Ahn as Su-An, Ma Dong-seok as Sang-Hwa, Jung Yu-mi as Sung Gyeong, and Kim Eui-Sung as Yon-Suk .  He also directed another zombie animated film, Seoul Station which is a prequel of Train to Busan. The message bring to audience in this movie is about the bond relationship among family and how a person reveal their true humanity when the situation become critical. Train to Busan is classified as a horror genre movie. Horror genre has three sub genre which are unnatural, psychological and massacre or also known as slasher flicks. This movie is under the unnatural sub genre because it consists unnatural zombie which it does not exist in the real life. Unnatural category in horror genre is define as an external force threatening civilians and bodily mutilations such as being bitten by a zombie and altering the normal body states. The movie is ...